“I was going to graduate and I was supposed to find a job like everyone else in my year,
but I didn’t do that at all. Maybe I looked up a job here and there, but I didn’t apply to any position. This was all because I stumbled up on an opportunity when I was browsing on the web on working abroad; I found Global Nomadic. The project that captured my eyes was called Science & Engineering Internship in Bangkok.
When I first saw the project, I immediately thought, “I don’t have any working engineering experience because I didn’t do an internship during my school year. I’ve never been to Thailand. I don’t want to start working locally right the way. So, let’s do it!” My aim on the project was to gain some hands-on engineering skills and experience a whole new culture.
After I applied, I was referred to the programme coordinator in Thailand. The organization dealt with finding an internship, setting up interviews, creating all the necessary documents for applying for VISA, and finding accommodations. Of course, the cost of these services is not the cheapest. Luckily, since I worked throughout my high school and university year, I didn’t have to raise any fund for this trip.
This trip had a fantastic beginning. On the first day of arrival, a staff member picked me up and showed me my apartment for the next three months. The apartment was bigger than what I thought and it was closed to a mall. The staff also set up the sim card for my phone. Later on, a co-worker came and picked me up to give me an orientation at the factory that I worked at. Since I arrived on a Thursday, I was going to start the week after so I had a long weekend already. To top that, I joined the trip with the staff and other interns in the city to Koh Samet, a nearby island. I made some friends and enjoyed my first weekend on a tropical island!
After an amazing weekend, I started living in my local area. Since the workplace was not within the city, I was living away from the tourist areas. This meant a lot of people did not know how to speak English, so street food and random restaurants were not really an option. The locals usually had a menu only in Thai with no pictures. On top of that, most locals would write down what they would order. Fortunately, as I said before, my apartment was by a big mall. The restaurants inside the mall had menus in English and with pictures. These restaurants were serving different cuisines so I enjoyed them a lot, especially because I am not good with spicy food, while most Thai food are spicy in general. The mall also contained supermarket, Tesco Lotus, which was convenient for house supplies. Other than that, there’s 7-11 everywhere, and they opened 24 hours, so living was not a struggle at all.
At the first week of work, my manager didn’t give anything major for me to start off. My main activity was to familiarize myself with the factory, its processes, and coworkers. I enjoyed this little easing in, instead of jumping into work right the way. The coworkers were extremely nice and kind. I also self-taught myself the software the company was using for the technical drawings. I believe this was a good foundation for that success I had for the rest of the project.”
Evan Kwok 2017
